This is kinda a bird watching experiance today. At lunch I got to see some very strange behavior involving birds and powert lines at lunch.

Sitting in my truck outside a job site, and heard some weird bird noises, angry blackbirds. Very familiar sound seeing that I know where the blackbird nest is because they occassionaly attack me as I walk by thier nest which is on the building next door to the site. So I look up expecting to see one of the workers on the site being pecked in the head.... This time I look up and a GIANT red-tailed hawk is floating by thier nest. This bird is huge! 3-4' wing-span. Then I notice that the blackbirds are doing something very smart for them, considering the have a brain the size of a pea. They fly out to the powerlines... This is where it gets wierd. They stay between the (what I understand to be) 4 or 12KV lines. (The 2 voltages in the area) Originally, I thought they were trying to avoid this large hunting bird by staying in the congestion of the lines. But the LV, and cable/tel lines would have been much easier to do that in. As this chase drawn out for a while, I realized they were purposely trying to lure this hawk between the HV phases, trying to kill this bird by getting him between the phases. Either way, it was very smart, but I am left with the feeling that the blackbirds and the hawk understood what the consequences were. As the hawk was very comfortable flying between the LV or tel/cable lines, but completely avoided going between the HV, which could easily, due to it's span, turn it into a fireball. i.e. the fate of the California Condor.

Has anyone ever seen or heard of such a thing?

I have noticed similar actions with Mockingbirds and Crows.

Scott35

That is absolutely fascinating.
I know from experience, these so called "dumb animals", are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for.

They haven't evolved that far out where I'm working....

A hawk flew into the 12KV phases feeding the DO plant I've been working on... Enough to open the circuit up at the customers co-gen and have big-wigs driving about looking for the cause..

That same day on my way home a crow took the brunt of my front license plate at about 75-80 mph....

Randy, that bird may have been lured there from what I saw. Wheather or not that those black birds knew the potential of the lines they focused on, which are muck wider than the others, but it certianly seemed that way.

Or, by the way, I had a conversation with the neighbor, the one with the blackbird nest. And she said she had seen evidence that a hawk had bitten the dust there before. "Just parts of a hawk scattered by the driveway." (Wing here, head there.) She had wondered what could kill such a big bird, and tear it appart like that.

I'm wondering too. What would happen (really) to a 4' wingspan bird between 12kv phases 3' apart? Explode?

KFC

More like KvFC

Personally, I like my birds smoked, (Hickory, and apple) not fried.....

Volture?

NO - GUYS - REALLY
What happens to a bird at 12KV?

This is a technical question....

Burn, explode, or just - ummmmm dead?

Don't make me put this on the Mythbusters site.



[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 05-01-2006).]

E57, I would say 12 KV makes a bird fly high enough to see St. Peter!

In truth though... as witnessed a number of times...you get a very nice arc blast, followed by a cloud of singed feathers floating in the breeze. Not much noise -more of a 'pop'- but a real nice flash.

Once had a bird land on a pole-mounted transformer; there was a very loud buzzing sound - like the mother of all breakers trying to trip- a little flicker in the lighting, and no more birdie. Lots of smell of burnt BBQ, though.
(This lasyt happend as I was up a ladder, making a live service connection.... for the life of me, I was SURE I had somehow crossed phases!)